1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera which is capable of performing photometry on a subject divided into a plurality of regions and of calculating an exposure value based upon the photometric outputs from these regions, and particularly relates to such a camera which is provided with a display device for displaying the brightness distribution over the subject.
2. Related Background Art
Recently more and more cameras have been produced which utilize a so called finely divided photometry method. With this finely divided photometry method, photometry is performed on a plurality of regions into which the subject is divided, and a photometric signal is obtained for each of these regions. For this method, the photometric conversion element constituting the photometric sensor is divided into a plurality of sub-elements which correspond to the above described plurality of regions. Through exposure calculation based upon the photometric output of the divided photometric elements, it is possible to perform photography of the principal object to be photographed with appropriate exposure settings, without the illumination level of the background exerting any effect.
With this type of finely divided photometry method, the greater is the number of sub-elements of the photometric sensor, the more finely can the brightness distribution over the principal object to be photographed and its surroundings be obtained. Accordingly the more accurately can the exposure value be determined. Therefore in recent years the number of sub-elements has increased steadily up to the range of several tens to several hundreds. For examples, reference may be made to Japanese Patent laid-open Application No. 4-215631 and U.S. patent Ser. No. 813,525.
Now, with a camera having a prior art finely divided photometry function as described above, the exposure value is calculated based upon the photometric values obtained for the various regions, and the result of the calculation is displayed upon a display device. However, such a display has not been extended so far as to show the results of the photometry performed for the various regions, i.e. the distribution of brightness over the subject. Therefore, there remains the inconvenience that the photographer cannot determine what are the brightness conditions in the various portions of the subject.
With a camera having a finely divided photometry function according to the prior art, normally the construction is such that the exposure amount is determined by supposing only the central portion of the various photometric regions into which the subject is divided to be the important region in which the object to be photographed is to be found. Accordingly, in the case when a photograph is to be taken with the object being positioned intentionally outside the central portion of the photographic frame, there has been the problem that photography has been performed without the intention of the photographer being reflected, and thus using an undesirable exposure value.